Rise of Sci-Fi: Arrival

Outside of superhero movies and Star Wars, I’ve never really been interested in the Science Fiction genre. That is, until recently. Within the last few years, there seems to have been an increase in the sheer number of big sci-fi projects being released in theaters and on television. New Star Trek and Star Wars films have stirred the pot as well as Interstellar (2014) and The Martian (2015).

Arrival, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, was released at the end of last year. I wasn’t able to see it until this past weekend, and I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it especially considering all of the bad reviews I had received from friends who had seen it. Although the movie did take its sweet time unfurling the complexities of its plot, I found the end result to be worth it.

The general plot is 12 strange spacecraft have landed in various places throughout the world, and the United States enlists linguistics professor Louise Banks to interpret the language of the apparent alien visitors. It seems relatively straight forward and without surprise, but the major plot twist is incredibly well-done. In fact, one of the reasons it probably succeeded was a result of the relatively unassuming nature of the rest of the film.

Adams and Renner do not disappoint. They delivered in every sense of the word, and although the ending is not pleasing to everyone, I found it suiting as well as refreshing.